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''Space Cadet'' is a 1948
science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
novel by Robert A. Heinlein about Matt Dodson, who joins the Interplanetary Patrol to help preserve peace in the
Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...
. The story translates the standard military academy story into outer space: a boy from
Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...
goes to officer school, sees action and adventure, shoulders responsibilities far beyond his experience, and becomes a man. It was published as the second of the series of
Heinlein juveniles The Heinlein juveniles are the science-fiction novels written by Robert A. Heinlein for Scribner's young-adult line. Each features "a young male protagonist entering the adult world of conflict, decisions, and responsibilities". Together, th ...
and inspired the media franchise around the character Tom Corbett, including the 1950s television series '' Tom Corbett, Space Cadet'' and radio show which made "Space Cadet" a household phrase whose meaning later shifted in popular culture.


Plot summary

In 2075, teenager Matt Dodson applies to join the prestigious Interplanetary Patrol. After a number of physical, mental, and ethics tests, he is accepted as a cadet. He makes friends with fellow recruits William "Tex" Jarman,
Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...
-born Oscar Jensen, and Pierre Armand from Ganymede. His first roommate is Girard Burke, the arrogant son of a wealthy spaceship builder. They are transported to the orbiting
school ship A training ship is a ship used to train students as sailors. The term is mostly used to describe ships employed by navies to train future officers. Essentially there are two types: those used for training at sea and old Hulk (ship type), hulks us ...
PRS ''James Randolph'' for further training. Burke eventually either resigns or is asked to leave, and goes into the merchant service, but the remainder do well enough to be assigned to working Patrol ships. Dodson, Jarman and Jensen ship out on the ''Aes Triplex''. Their first real mission is to help search for a missing research vessel, the ''Pathfinder'', in the
asteroid belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids ...
. They find it, but all aboard are dead, the unlucky victims of a fast-moving object that punctured the ship when the armored outer airlock door was open. Before the accident, a researcher on the ''Pathfinder'' had found evidence that the planet which blew up to form the asteroids was inhabited by an intelligent species, and that the explosion had been artificial. The captain of the ''Aes Triplex'' transfers half the crew to the repaired ''Pathfinder'' so that they can take the ship and the news of the startling discovery back to Earth quickly. With the remainder (including all three cadets), he plots a slower, fuel-efficient, elliptical voyage back to Earth. Then, he receives an urgent message to investigate an incident on Venus. He sends Lieutenant Thurlow and the cadets to the planet's surface. The lander touches down on a
sinkhole A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are also known as shakeholes, and to openings where surface water ...
, giving the crew barely enough time to get out before it disappears in the mud. With Thurlow comatose, injured when the lander fell over, Jensen assumes command. He contacts the sentient, usually friendly Venerians, but the entire party is taken captive. They soon find out why. These particular natives had never seen human beings before, until old classmate Burke showed up in a prospecting ship. He had taken the matriarch of the local clan hostage when she refused to give him permission to exploit a rich deposit of radioactive ores. The locals promptly attacked the ship and killed his crew; Burke managed to send a message for help before being taken prisoner. Jensen gains the matriarch's trust and convinces her that they are honorable and civilized, unlike Burke, and the Patrolmen are released. Unfortunately, neither the lander nor Burke's ship is flightworthy. To their amazement, the matriarch takes the stranded humans to the carefully preserved ''Astarte'', the legendary first ship to set out for Venus over a century before and thought to have been lost en route. According to the log, the crew perished from disease. With the help of the natives, the cadets recommission the ship and fly it back to Venus's South Pole colony. Dodson is initially disappointed when they are not treated as heroes, but then realizes that what they accomplished was simply what was expected of Patrolmen.


Themes

The Patrol is entrusted by the worldwide
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...
government with a monopoly on
nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear exp ...
s, and is expected to maintain a credible threat to drop them on Earth from orbit as a deterrent against breaking the peace. Matt, on a visit home, causes a family argument when his parents refuse to believe that the Patrol—and especially their son—would actually bomb Iowa. The cadets are expected to renounce their loyalty to their respective countries and replace it by a wider allegiance to
human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...
ity as a whole and to the sentient species of the Solar System. They are told the stories of four Patrol heroes/martyrs who exemplify this quality. One of them, Rivera, leaves orders to annihilate his hometown if he is held captive there during negotiations. Heinlein later expanded another of these anecdotes into " The Long Watch". The young, idealistic Matt feels that he should be able, if the need arose, to emulate Rivera and destroy his own Iowa hometown. His father tells him such a need would never arise, since the Patrol's cosmopolitan allegiance is little more than a sham and in fact it is controlled by the "North American Federation" and serves its interests. Later, Matt's mentor in the Patrol makes him understand that if such an unlikely dilemma should arise, his commanding officer would lock him in his room rather than expect him to participate in the attack. The mentor uses this scenario to force Matt to confront the personal and political issues involved in the institutional control of atomic weapons in a more mature way. Written almost a decade before the American Civil Rights Movement, and at a time when non-white characters were almost entirely absent from science fiction, the book also explores the theme of
racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...
, both literally, in discussions about the cosmopolitan racial makeup of the (all-male) Patrol, and metaphorically, in its description of conflict with the Venerians. Venus is described as intensely hot and (incorrectly, as is now known) swampy, but habitable. The Venerians are at first thought to be primitive, but it is later revealed that they have a high level of technological sophistication, though developed along radically different lines than that of humans. There is also a subplot revolving around the issue of what it means to be a good soldier. Discouraged by the intellectual demands of his Patrol training, and attracted to the glamor and esprit de corps of the
Marines Marines (or naval infantry) are military personnel generally trained to operate on both land and sea, with a particular focus on amphibious warfare. Historically, the main tasks undertaken by marines have included Raid (military), raiding ashor ...
, Matt requests a transfer, but is dissuaded by his mentor. The mentor, dividing human motivations into three types, explains that the Patrol, which has the responsibility of holding the ultimate weapon and keeping overall peace, is manned by a certain sort of person, the man of ideals (its motto is ''
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? is a Latin phrase found in the '' Satires'' (Satire VI, lines 347–348), a work of the 1st–2nd century Roman poet Juvenal. It may be translated as "Who will guard the guards themselves?" or "Who will watch the watchmen?". The original contex ...
).'' In contrast, the Marines, the service branch which deals with ordinary military affairs, are trained to prize unquestioning loyalty and bravery as the highest ideals, and are deliberately recruited from the type of person who seeks glory and excitement. Matt belongs to the former category. The Merchant Service, by implication, is for a third category, those motivated by economic concerns β€” which is where Burke fits in. The novel contains an early description of a
mobile phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This rad ...
: The phone "was limited by its short range to the neighborhood of an earth-side .e. terrestrialrelay office". A cadet avoids having to talk to his family while traveling by packing his phone in luggage.


Critical reception

Surveying Heinlein's juvenile novels,
Jack Williamson John Stewart Williamson (April 29, 1908 – November 10, 2006) was an American list of science fiction authors, science fiction writer, one of several called the "Dean of Science Fiction". He is also credited with one of the first uses of the t ...
characterized ''Space Cadet'' as "a long step forward. ... The characters are stronger ndthe background is carefully built, original, and convincing, the story suspenseful enough." Williamson noted that Heinlein was "perfecting the ''
bildungsroman In literary criticism, a bildungsroman () is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth and change of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood (coming of age). The term comes from the German words ('formation' or 'edu ...
'' form that shapes the whole series." P. Schuyler Miller gave the book a favorable review as "a first-rate historical novel of the near future," saying "So subtly has the scientific detail been interwoven with plot and action that the reader never realizes how painstakingly it has been worked out."


''Tom Corbett, Space Cadet''

The novel inspired Joseph Greene of
Grosset & Dunlap Grosset & Dunlap is a New York City-based publishing house founded in 1898. The company was purchased by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1982 and today is part of Penguin Random House through its subsidiary Penguin Group. In recent years, through the P ...
to develop the '' Tom Corbett, Space Cadet'' comic books, television series, radio show, comic strip, and novels that were popular in the early 1950s. Greene had originally submitted a radio script for "Tom Ranger and the Space Cadets" on January 16, 1946, but it remained unperformed when Heinlein's novel was published. Heinlein influenced the evolution of "Tom Ranger" into "Tom Corbett" and launched his student astronaut title's common mention; they share credit for the popularity of both formal and later slang uses of "space cadet."


In popular culture

The '' Tom Corbett, Space Cadet'' television series and radio show made "space cadet" a household phrase. By 1955,
Jackie Gleason Herbert John Gleason (born Herbert Walton Gleason Jr.; February 26, 1916June 24, 1987), known as Jackie Gleason, was an American comedian, actor, writer, and composer also known as "The Great One". He developed a style and characters from growin ...
spoke the phrase on ''
The Honeymooners ''The Honeymooners'' is an American television sitcom that originally aired from 1955 to 1956, created by and starring Jackie Gleason, and based on a recurring comedy sketch of the same name that had been part of Gleason's variety show. It f ...
'' television show in an episode called "TV or Not to TV," original airdate October 1, 1955. The popular meanings of "space cadet" later shifted in popular culture away from astronaut-in-training to indicate, by the 1960s, an "eccentric person disconnected with reality" (often implying an intimacy with hallucinogenic drugs) although by the 2010s, drug use was rarely implied by this phrase, nor was low intelligence implied; "space cadet" was more simply associated with "spacing out," wandering from present concerns, especially of others present, and being a "space case." Both the "trainee astronaut" and "person regarded as being out of touch with reality" entered the ''
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
'', though by 2014 Oxford noted that, in American English, the phrase had also recouped the positive connotations originally meant by Heinlein and Joseph Greene, the ''Tom Corbett, Space Cadet'' writer: "An enthusiast for space travel, typically a young person."


References


External links

* * {{Heinlein (Novel) 1948 American novels 1948 science fiction novels 1948 children's books American science fiction novels American children's novels Children's science fiction novels Space exploration novels Novels set on Venus Novels set in the 21st century Novels set in the 2070s American novels adapted into films Science fiction novels adapted into films American novels adapted into television shows American novels adapted into plays American novels adapted for radio Novels adapted into comics Novels by Robert A. Heinlein